“The bill was passed in a haphazard fashion and that’s being generous,” Smith tells Nebraska Radio Network.

It would be difficult to recap all the twists and turns the legislation took to make it to President Barack Obama’s desk in March of 2010.

Democrats used their super-majority numbers following the 2008 elections to muscle a version of the Affordable Care Act through both the House and the Senate. The bills were to be reconciled during conference committees between the two chambers, but Republican Scott Brown won a special election in January to replace Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, depriving Senate Democrats of the 60 votes needed to overcome any Republican filibuster.

Democrats didn’t want to risk sending the bill back to the Senate and a certain Republican filibuster, so the House passed the Senate version and sent it to President Obama for his signature.

“The bill was voted upon on final passage with it being a known fact that it was a flawed bill,” Smith says of the 2,700 page bill. “But, the Democrats were afraid they were going to lose a vote, that super-majority vote, over in the Senate with the loss of Ted Kennedy, so they threw something together just to get it done.”

Smith contends Republicans are working diligently to get a replacement right. It seems doubtful, though, that any efforts to repeal and replace the ACA will be any more bipartisan than the original bill.